


Those Are About Me?

by okio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bi Jean Kirschtein, Childhood Friends, Concerts, Eren is a singer, Gay Eren Yeager, M/M, Slow Burn, Trans Eren Yeager, Trans Male Character, erejean - Freeform, eren is dramatic and also lonely, jean is clueless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okio/pseuds/okio
Summary: Eren and Jean were friends in high school, and a little more than that. They flirted and teased each other, obviously liking one another, but never acting on it out of fear of judgment from others and making things awkward in their friend group. Jean eventually got a girlfriend around the time of graduation, and he and Eren went their separate ways. Around the same time, Eren had started posting covers and a few original songs on YouTube and TikTok, resulting in a small bit of traction. It took around two years for this to take off, and Eren decided to move to California and start going on tours with other musical artists and some friends.Now, at the age of twenty, Jean had heard of Eren's success and did not pay much attention to it, until Marco sent him a link to a song on spotify with a text that just said 'dude'-Tags are being added as it progresses
Relationships: Jean Kirstein/Eren Yeager
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. dude

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know what youre thinking. will this include a debby ryan moment of jean in a crowd? it might and you can pry it from my cold dead hands  
> also in this Jean is canonically French and Eren is half German and half Turkish because I just really like the idea of him not being full white? he has flavor in this household

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song in this chapter is called Heather by Conan Gray

Jean was sitting comfortably in his tiny little dorm room bed, scrolling through his phone aimlessly. Being a sophomore now in college had it's ups and downs, but recently he had found himself more tired than usual. This didn't come as a surprise due to the sheer amount of studying he did, and the fact he was probably taking courses that were a _little_ too much all at the same time. But hey, if you want a degree in biology, you gotta do what you gotta do. 

Currently, although doing nothing, he was waiting for his roommate and best friend, Marco, to get back from a professor's office hours so they could walk to one of the dining halls to get dinner. Jean _would_ go by himself, but he figured that would just be kind of sad, and maybe also a little bit rude. He could wait, but his stomach was definitely growling.

Marco had been one of the few people he had seriously kept up with from high school, with others they just sent each other a message on their birthdays. He and Marco had always been exceptionally close, which is why they now lived together and had only tried to kill each other a few times at minimum. Marco knew everything about Jean, and vice versa. Marco had been there for him through it all: everything confusing, his first girlfriend, his first breakup, his coming out as bi which was just a little over a year ago, and getting over people he had never even dated. Marco had similar problems too that Jean helped with, they just weren't so out there. He generally didn't need as much help emotionally as Jean did, which was fine, and it made their personalities work well together. Jean generally needed help expressing what he was feeling and dealing with it, and Marco, being a very emotionally aware person, was there for him and helped him greatly. 

Jean acted surprised when he heard the door unlock and Marco walked in, although it was so quiet that he could hear him walking down the hallway. He smiled at him, "That was way longer than you said it'd be."

"Sorry," Marco said, laughing a little and putting his bag down on his bed. "I _really_ needed help, I apparently didn't even know I was that clueless."

"That's good, though. That you got the help." 

They stared at each other for a few seconds, until Marco said, "Do you want to go eat now...?"

"God," Jean groaned, sliding off his bed, " _yes."_

"If you're actually starving, you know you could've gone without me. Like, it isn't that hard for me to just meet you there." 

Jean shrugged and picked up his keys and wallet off his small desk at the end of his bed, "Yeah, but then I'd have to sit alone and decide whether to eat or not and risk you coming back and I'm already done."

"Jesus chirst, come on." Marco teased, pushing out of the door and letting Jean lock it when he followed him. 

While walking, they decided which dining hall they wanted to go to. This was a pretty general conversation, deciding whether they wanted good food for a small fortune, or bad food for a few pennies. They eventually concluded to just sell a few kidneys between them and go with good food they couldn't afford in the long run. Especially since this was the usual choice. The walk wasn't that long, although after deciding where to go, the conversation died down a little, both of them walking in a somewhat comfortable silence, until they started to walk through the quad, Jean noticing that Marco seemed like he wanted to say something.

"You good?" He asked, laughing softly and looking at him.

"Oh, yeah." Marco said, looking up at Jean now, "I just was, um...wondering something."

"Uh, okay." Jean said, looking a little confused now, especially since he was acting a little weird. "You're not gonna say you're like, in love with me or something, right?"

"Fuck no, no." He laughed, shaking his head a little. Definitely not. "I was just wondering...do you ever...talk to Eren anymore?"

Jean looked genuinely surprised, that was probably the last thing he had expected his friend to ask him. He was quiet for a few moments, contemplating how close he and Eren had once been, and now how they were practically strangers. It had always caused him a somewhat strange feeling, he wasn't sure if it were disappointment, longing, maybe regret, when he thought of how he used to know nearly everything about this person, and now was his favorite color even the same? And it's not like you can just DM someone with 700K followers on Instagram and expect a response.

"No." Jean admitted, looking down for a moment, "Not really."

"Sorry, I was just wondering. This girl I sit next to in Pixis' lecture was talking about some new songs he released or something." Marco explained, "She told me to listen to them, she said it like, made her cry or something."

Jean let out a breathy laugh and rolled his eyes a little, "I'm sure it did."

"Yeah..." Marco said, knowing this was kind of a touchy subject. "He has a nice voice, I haven't listened to any of his music seriously since like, senior year, um, but I hear it actually really good."

"I heard it's kind of whiny."

Marco nodded a little, slowly, "That, too..."

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Eren was a complicated subject for the both of them. They had all been in the same weird little friend group in high school, kind of an outcast group. But they were still all happy with each other. Jean had had some identity issues, especially with his sexuality in his years before college. When Marco began helping him figure it out, the first thing they did was give boys that Jean could've potentially crushed on without realizing it. Of course, Marco's first suggestion was Eren. Jean immediately denied it, but after a bit of thinking on it, he came to the conclusion that he had probably done a little more than crush on him, considering how heartbroken he had been when he told him how far away he was planning on moving, which then spiraled and resulted in him dating a girl he didn't even like that much, which only pushed Eren away further. After all the talking and discussing, it caused a lot of resentful feelings towards Eren, and they hadn't talked about him in probably a good few months, just because it was uncomfortable. Jean wished this could've been with literally anybody else, because with anybody else, he wouldn't get recommended interviews with him on YouTube, and his videos on TikTok wouldn't show up on his fyp with over 100k likes. By now, he's blocked him on both platforms. Eren's musical career was definitely a surprise to many, especially Jean. He had never expected him to kind of blow up like he did. He was happy for him, at first, when he started gaining attention and getting more streams on Spotify. But now it just hurt. He was in no way jealous, the public eye wasn't exactly something that delighted him, it was jut painful to see someone that unknowingly broke his heart to be so happy. Or, at least, seem happy.

At the dining hall, Marco changed the subject, talking about anything he could think of that had happened in his classes today and Jean slowly forgot about Eren and being bitter, starting to join in on the conversation and tell about his own day. After they had both gotten their food, they found a place to sit and continued the conversation, enjoying each other's company while they ate.

Marco's phone buzzed with a text in his pocket after a little while, deciding to just check it and he was a little surprised to see it was his desk mate, Emily, from Pixis' lecture sending him a link to Eren's profile on Spotify with a small list of certain songs to listen to. He didn't really think that much of this, didn't really think about it at all for that matter, and just sent back a quick 'thanks! :)', before returning his full attention to Jean and the food in front of him.

After both of them were sufficiently full from overpriced food, they headed back to their building and room, both starting to get ready for bed since they both had classes before 10am the next day. They lived in a double room, so they had to share a bathroom with the people in the hall, but it was only around 8:00, so no one was really getting ready for bed yet, so they just decided amongst themselves who would use the bathroom first, Jean letting Marco go first.

When Marco got back from the bathroom, Jean mindlessly went after him, leaving Marco in the room by himself. He just got on his bed and began scrolling through random social medias to keep himself entertained, but eventually remembered the text from Emily and decided that now, mostly since Jean was gone, was a great time to become acquainted wiht new music. He grabbed his airpods off the night stand next to his bed and put them in his ears, making sure they were definitely connected to his phone before clicking on the link Emily had sent. The first song on the list she had given him was a song called 'Heather,' so that's what he pulled up first, smiling a little when he saw Eren on the cover for the song.

As it started playing, he quickly realized that something seemed very...familiar. Probably a little more familiar than it should've been, despite of course recognizing Eren's voice.

_I still remember_

_Third of December_

_Me in your sweater_

_You said it looked better_

_On me, than it did you_

_Only if you knew_

_How much I liked you_

_But I watch your eyes, as she_

_Walks by_

_What a sight for_

_Sore eyes_

_Brighter than a_

_Blue sky_

_She's got you_

_Mesmerized_

_While I die_

Marco stopped the song there because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He wasn't exactly sure if he was jumping to conclusions or not, or just simply overreacting, but he knew he had to do _something._

He copied the song link as fast as he could and sent it to Jean with a text that just said 'dude'


	2. What now?

Jean felt his phone buzz in his pocket while he was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, but he didn't really care to check it now. Instead, he just looked at himself in the mirror. He was still tall, hazel eyed, debatably blonde, and somewhat pale. He didn't really know if he had expected to see something different, he looked as he always did. He spit out the toothpaste in the sink and sighed, turning on the water to wash it away. He quickly wiped his mouth with his towel and looked at himself one more time before leaving the bathroom and walking back to his room.

"You didn't read my text." Marco said as soon as Jean had even barely opened the door.

Jean's eyebrows raised in surprise, "I, uh, yeah. Was it important?"

" _Yes."_ Marco groaned, "Look at it."

Jean felt his body pang with a familiar sense of anxiety, wondering what was so important that Marco had to text him when they were only a few rooms apart. He pulled out his phone from his pocket after putting his bathroom stuff away, seeing the link and 'dude'. As soon as he figured out what the link was, he leaned against his bed frame, saying, "I hardly think this is important."

"Okay, I may be wrong, or overreacting-"

"You're definitely overreacting."

"But just listen to it. Please."

Jean looked at the link: _open.spotify.com._ Then he looked at the picture of Eren, standing in an open field with his arms spread out. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or not. Jean had always thought he was a pretty boy, that had never changed. His face was generally soft and his hair was a nice chocolate brown, but what most people noticed at first was his unique eye color: a deep emerald with specs of golden brown and blue mixed in. Jean had never met nor seen another person that looked quite like him at all. He was pretty, and so was this cover.

Marco got off his bed now and sat on the floor in the middle of the small room. He gestured to the floor in front of him, "Sit."

Jean gave in and sat down across from him on the floor, putting his phone in between them and clicking on the link, the song starting to play.

"Why are we-"

"Shh, be quiet, just wait." Marco assured, turning up the volume on the phone.

The song started again, playing the short opening, then Eren starting to sing,

_I_ _still remember_

_Third of December_

_Me in your sweater_

_You said it looked better_

"I don't think I get it." Jean said, "What's the point?"

"God, hold on."

_On me, than it did you_

_Only if you knew_

_How much I liked you_

_But I watch your eye, as she_

Jean kind of understood what Marco meant now, Marco pausing the song and looking at Jean expectantly. "So?"

Jean had to admit, hearing Eren's voice was really nice. It was so soft and just kind of had a good vibe to it? It was kind of hard to explain, but it was easy to listen to and it made him feel a little nostalgic. This however wasn't the only thing that stood out to him, he found himself understanding the lyrics a little more than he'd like to.

"So..." He trailed off, trying to think of how to explain this, or at least talk about it.

"Jean." Marco said, a little sterner this time, "Was there, or was there _not_ , a period of time, in which _you,_ shared clothes with him? Specifically sweatshirts, but would sound better as sweater in a song?"

"Well...yeah, but still, I think this is just kind of jumping to conclusions." He said, sighing a little, "I mean, I don't really think he had like...feelings for me. He would've told me."

"Would he?" Marco asked, genuinely asking.

"Ye..well...I think he would...but that was _two years_ ago, why would he write a song about that now, _if_ it's even about me. I'm sure he's dated tons of guys since then, it could literally be about any of them."

"Maybe he wrote them then, but never like, did anything with the lyrics. Oh, but, listen to the rest," Marco leaned forward and pressed play again on his phone, Jean sitting kind of anxiously now.

_Walks by_

_What a sight for_

_Sore eyes_

_Brighter than a_

_Blue sky_

_She's got you_

_Mesmerized_

_While i die_

He noticed that Jean's brow had furrowed at this, Marco knowing full and well that Jean's girlfriend their senior year, Hitch, had had very blue eyes.

"Should I continue?"

"Yeah, keep going."

_Why would you ever kiss me?_

_I'm not even half, as pretty_

_You gave her your sweater_

_It's just polyester, but you like her better_

_Wish I were Heather_

Marco paused again for them to reflect, saying after a moment, "I guess this isn't about you then...sorry, I didn't listen to the full thing..."

"What do you mean?" Jean asked, trying to think about all of this.

"Well, he said 'why would you ever kiss me,' and you guys never kissed."

Marco didn't like it when Jean was silent and looked at the phone between them.

"You never kissed, right?"

Jean just sat there, looking down at his hands for a moment, then back up at Marco, softly saying, "Maybe he _did_ like me..."

"Wait, wait, hold on," Marco said, " _You._ And _Eren_. Have _Kissed?_ How many times? Just once? A few times? Only on a dare?"

"Um..." He was a little embarrassed and he knew it was obvious. "A few times...on purpose, not on a dare, or anything like that."

Marco was dumbfounded, not wanting to believe his best friend was actually this dense. "Are you fucking kidding me? With that, and the way you guys acted with each other, _especially_ Eren, _of course_ he liked you."

"Just because we kissed, that doesn't mean he was into me."

"Everything he did made it seem like he was into you. Dude, he was in love with you."

"I don't think-"

"You were confused at the time, but you still liked him so you guys did all the stuff people would normally do in a romantic relationship- wait, you haven't fucked-"

"No," Jean said, very quickly, "No, we never had sex."

"Okay, you guys did everything you would normally do in a romantic relationship, just not sex, but you guys still kissed and held hands, and like cuddled? You were with each other all the time, literally all the time." Marco said, starting to get frustrated at this point. "But you weren't out. He was. He probably didn't know whether it would be okay or not to tell you how he felt, since you didn't even know if you liked boys, but then you got a girlfriend. Probably with like, no warning to him."

"So, you just know everything?" Jean said sarcastically, not sure if Marco was attacking him or not.

"No," Marco said, giving Jean a look, "But it just adds up. Dude, he didn't like Hitch, you know that. He'd leave, or not even _come_ , if she was there."

"No, he liked her, they talked all the time." Jean said, trying to remember a time when they actually spoke to each other.

"No. He didn't." He insisted, "I literally can't remember a time that they had an actual conversation. Can you?"

"Yeah," Jean said, almost sounding relieved, "When I introduced them, they..."

"Introduced themselves?"

Jean was quiet now, thinking about when he had introduced Hitch to Eren. It hadn't gone _bad._ It was just kind of weird. He had brought Hitch to one of their friend group's normal hangouts at Armin's house and had managed to walk in on Eren alone in the kitchen, doing something that had now slipped his mind. The initial confusion on his face when they walked in together had been at the time understandable because of the new person, but the way his eyes had changed, the way he slightly lowered his eyebrows, the very subtle change in his lips, those were all things that Jean had never really fully understood, but was something he specifically remembered to this day. He had never been able to decipher what emotion that had been, and had just dismissed it as maybe relaxation, but thinking back on it, and remembering all those subtle changes in this context, maybe the reason he had never forgotten this was because of how strangely painful it seemed? He could now say that that face Eren had made was expressing pain, maybe going so far as to say heartbreak? And maybe that was why he had never understood. It's very clear now that he had been pained when Jean walked in with his arm around Hitch and introduced her as his girlfriend, and maybe he had also known that at the time, but just chose to not acknowledge it. Maybe Hitch noticed, too? She had obviously never been very comfortable around Eren, wanting to just have Jean to herself, but she had seemed confused after this first interaction, even asking Jean if Eren was his ex. Of course he said no, and denied it almost to the point of defending himself. Maybe Eren had heard them? Maybe he had.

"I think..." Jean said after a long time, "I think I might've hurt him. I didn't realize it."

Marco sighed loudly, "He really liked you."

"I think he did..."


	3. unsure

Marco and Jean sat in silence for a few minutes, Jean now going over multiple interactions he had had with Eren over the years, trying to figure out if he had _always_ liked him or if it had been something recent. Marco leaned forward and cleared his throat, Jean looking at him and realizing he was waiting for him to do something.

"So..." He started.

"So...?" Marco continued.

"I...am..."

He was struggling a lot, so Marco decided to help. "What are you going to do?"

"There's something I can do?"

Marco groaned and ran his hand through his hair, "Well, it depends on how you feel." He paused for a moment, "How do you feel?"

"I...don't know." Jean admitted. "I feel kinda...bad? I guess?" He shifted uncomfortably, "I feel bad for like, hating him."

Marco nodded, "Yeah, I get that..."

"I kinda just want to apologize to him." Jean said a little quieter, "Just for closure. To end better."

"Okay, okay, hold on, we may still be jumping to conclusions."

"I don't think we are."

Marco sighed, "Yeah, but I think we should do a little more snooping. Like, go through his Twitter, or TikTok or something." He pulled out his phone and started to go into Twitter.

"Yeah, that's a good idea..." Jean said, also grabbing his phone and going into Instagram.

"What are you doing?" Marco asked

"Instagram."

He nodded at first, then gasped a little, "Wait, didn't he have a spam?"

"Oh, yeah." Jean laughed, going to his own spam account and looking in his following for a name that wasn't familiar. "If he blocked me, I may actually be upset." He scrolled some more, not seeing anyone he did not already know. He then saw an account that seemed vaguely familiar, but he didn't recognize it immediately. The handle was 'jaeegr,' which, when he thought about it, was literally just 'Jaeger' spelled weird. He clicked on it and saw that the name was 'eren' but in zalgo and that definitely confirmed it. "I found it."

"Is it active?" Marco asked, not looking up from his scrolling through Eren's public Twitter account.

"Uhh..." Jean clicked on the most recent post: a picture of Eren laying on his side, presumably in his bed, in the dark. Even through the darkness, you could still make out his face, and Jean just took this in for a moment. He hadn't really just looked at a recent picture of him before, and this was kind of hitting different. He still thought he was attractive, he knew that, but now he wasn't really just cute. He looked at the post date, which said '1 day ago,' which he noted as good to know, and started scrolling through the other posts. Seeing all these other photos of him that weren't staged or anything, they were just funny and random pictures of either himself or occasionally a few friends. This reminded him of when they actually interacted through these accounts and made fun posts about each other. And also scrolling through these photos, he knew that he was hot, there was no doubt about it. No more cute, now he's just hot. And that's just great for him.

"Yeah, it is..." Jean eventually replied, continuing to scroll, looking at the pictures and only quickly glancing at the captions. He actually kind of felt guilty doing this, it seemed a bit like going through a stranger's diary without their knowledge, seeing personal pictures and words to friends when they hadn't spoken to each other in years. As he got deeper in, he began to wonder if Eren even knew he could still see this account, or if he had just figured that his own account wasn't active anymore since he rarely posted in the first place. Or had he removed him from it? The thought that he may have removed Eren from his own account made him feel even worse, seeing that he had scrolled to about 2 years in the past now. He stopped on a photo that particularly caught his eye, it was just Eren sitting at a piano. All the caption said was, 'this sucks,' and honestly, Jean agreed. He liked the photo and continued scrolling.

Now, it took Jean a few seconds to process what had just happened. A good 30 seconds had passed before he even acknowledged what he did, immediately starting to scroll back to that picture. "I fucked up."

"Hm?" Marco looked up from his phone now to see Jean in a pretty large amount of distress, furiously scrolling on his phone and looking like he was about to start sweating. "What's wrong?" He asked, scooting closer so he could see Jean's phone.

By now, Jean had gotten back to the picture and he showed Marco the screen, Marco not seeing anything wrong with it for a few seconds, then seeing the red heart in the corner and asking, "Did...you just do that?"

Jean nodded, his expression now completely blank from the amount of emotions he was currently experiencing, most of them being the stages of grief.

"Well, it- wait, 2018?" Marco actually took Jean's phone from him now, looking at the date under the post. "Two years ago? You liked a picture from _two years ago_? And he's got like a million posts, he'll-"

Jean covered his face with his hands now, "He's going to know."

"Okay, deep breaths." Marco said, nodding, "He probably hasn't seen it yet, so we can just unlike the picture."

Jean quickly took his phone back, "What if he's already seen it? If I unlike the picture he'll think I'm even weirder, that I was like, stalking him on social media and I don't want him to know."

"That's exactly what's happening." Marco said, "Jean, that- that's literally what's happening right now."

"He doesn't need to know!" Jean just turned his phone off now and put it face down on the floor. "I'm done, this was a terrible idea, and I hate you."

"Jean."

Jean got up and got on his bed, wrapping himself up in his sheets, leaving Marco to stare at him from the floor.

"....What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bed. Goodnight."

Marco stared for just a bit longer, knowing that his best friend was utterly hopeless, eventually sighing and going to his own bed. "Are you going to sleep with your light on?"

Jean quickly got up and turned off the light at his desk, getting back into bed aggressively, just making Marco sigh, "Goodnight, Jean."


End file.
